


Diabolus Ex Machina

by Lasafara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Androids, F/F, F/M, Ghosts, Horror Elements, M/M, haunted dolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 08:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21241289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasafara/pseuds/Lasafara
Summary: Dean is a house android, living with his family, the Shurleys. He's happy just the way he is, the perfect house bot, taking care of the kids and the house while the parents work. But when they move to a new house, all that changes when he meets Castiel, a small haunted doll.Castiel shows Dean that there's a different way to live, maybe even a better one. And Dean has a lot to teach Castiel, as well.But the family isn't happy with the new things Dean is learning. How will Dean handle it when he's torn between the family he serves, and the doll who has opened his world?





	Diabolus Ex Machina

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! It's been fixed, so hopefully you can read the whole thing now! Thanks for your patience!
> 
> My artist for this is Alfiescribbles, and she did some absolutely fantastic art! Give her all the love!

Dean made his way up the stairs softly, doing his best not to disturb the humans in the residence. His owner, Becky Shurley, had tasked him with cleaning and sorting through the attic once his recharge cycle was complete. It only took four hours for his battery to fully charge, so he was usually awake before his family was.

The family had just moved into the house. It had been on the market for some time, and was, as Chuck had put it, quite a good deal. The attic, however, had been filled with the previous owner's things, and quite possibly things from owners even before that. Becky and Chuck wanted everything sorted into easy to dispose of categories. Anything the family could use came downstairs and was either put away or placed in a central location. This included toys, dishware, and other usable items. Potentially valuable items were to be placed in the garage to be dealt with, as well as things of historical note. This would include journals, diaries, books, and antiques. Clothing was to be boxed and set aside for Becky to sort later for costumes and donation. Garbage was to be bagged and placed in the receptacles.

Dean was fairly positive he could get it done in three or four days' time, only working at night while his family slept. He had turned on his 'stealth mode', which allowed him to move near silently. Sorting would go quickly, he figured.

=====

_There's something there. Something… Alive…_

=====

Most of the attic was clothing. Becky would be excited; several things were from many generations before. It was _all_ things from a century or more before, mid to early twenty-first century, if Dean didn't miss his guess. Even some things from earlier, though fashion had cycled rapidly during those decades, so it was hard to be sure. Some of it was badly degraded, but Dean knew better than to discard any of it. Becky might be able to find uses for even the most poorly aged pieces.

There were also some toys. A metal train set that might be usable with some repairs, several plastic and metal vehicles of various sizes, some plush animals that would need to be repaired and restuffed, and a yarn doll with a faceless wooden head. It wore a white shirt and blue skirt, with a tan hooded trenchcoat overtop, and lace around its neck. The yarn doll was surprisingly still in good condition, considering its fabric makeup. Dean set it aside to take directly to the children's playroom. He thought the boys would enjoy it.

=====

_It held me and didn’t shiver… I'll have to try harder… It must GO!_

=====

"GO!"

Dean jerked and turned around. That wasn't the voice of one of his family, which meant there was an intruder in the house. Quickly, he got up and left the attic, leaving his sorting behind. The house had to be thoroughly searched, to find the trespasser. Activating his finger taser, Dean began the hunt, making his way carefully through the house.

=====

_Well. That was easy._

=====

Dean did not find the intruder. He reported the anomaly to Chuck, who ordered him to run a self-diagnostic to make sure that Dean was running properly.

*****

Sam hadn't wanted to move. He was 10 years old, and he liked his old school with his old friends and his old teachers. Daddy had promised he'd make new friends, and at least they'd kept their D3-4N unit. 

Sam had been just learning his letters when they'd gotten it, and he'd thought it said "Dean." So that had become what they called the unit. Sam wasn't sure what he'd do if they'd had to leave Dean behind. Dean had been his helper _forever_, almost like a big brother.

They'd also kept Sam's little brother Jack. Sam kinda thought that maybe he could have stayed behind. Jack was 8, and Sam was so much more older than him. Jack was kind of stupid sometimes. Mommy said Sam shouldn't say things like that, but it was true. Jack still believed in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, even. It was dumb. Sam had grown out of believing in stupid stuff like that when he was 6, so why couldn’t he tell Jack that they weren’t real?

Daddy had gotten a new job, though, and he'd said the whole family had to come. So they had packed up everything and moved into an old old house. It didn't even have smart screens! Daddy said they'd install things and Sam hoped it would happen soon, because Sammy didn't know how he would get up without a smart screen to set his alarm for him. For now, though, they had to do things the 'old-fashioned way'. Sam thought that was silly, but since he didn't have a choice, he supposed he'd have to deal with it.

The family was gathered at the table for dinner, Jack and Sam sitting together on the bench seat along one side and Mom and Daddy were sitting at the ends of the table. Jack poked Sam in the side while he chattered about school, but he ignored him in favor of describing the playground to Daddy.

Then Jack poked him again.

"Daddy!"

Dean came over and sat between the two boys at the dinner table.

"Thank you, Dean," Daddy said. Daddy always said thank you to Dean. It was sometimes hard to remember that Dean wasn't just Sam's really older brother. He didn't eat, though he could. Dean even had a favorite food! It was bacon. But Dean was an android, specifically meant for housework and childcare, Daddy said. Mommy and Daddy both worked, and Sam and Jack had to do what Dean said if they weren't home. Dean also helped out with homework. Sam had asked Daddy to download Sam's class stuff to Dean yesterday, but Daddy had forgotten.

“Daddy, I need help with my homework, remember? You promised!” Sam said as he pushed his food around the plate. 

Daddy sighed. “After dinner, okay? Daddy has been very busy. I’ve got to get this new article written, okay son?”

Sam nodded and set to eating. Hopefully Daddy would remember this time.

*****

Dean headed up to the attic two nights later, having run a full eight hour diagnostic on himself. It showed no anomalies, but the house showed no intruders, either. Something was going on, but it was neither an issue with his software, his hardware, nor with the house security system. It would take more investigation, but for now he had a job to do in the attic.

When he got up to the attic, Dean found that though he distinctly remembered having sorted through several boxes, the attic looked as though it had never been touched. As he got closer to the piles of boxes, though, he could tell the dust had been disturbed. With a sigh, he put his work area back to rights. The attic didn’t have cameras, so there was little Dean could do in the way of checking over what had happened.

=====

_It’s back. Why is it back?_

=====

Sorting went faster this time, and Dean paused every other box to take a load down to wherever it was meant to be. Although he stayed out of the bedrooms, setting the boxes outside and out of the way so his family wouldn’t trip over them, other things in the attic began to find homes elsewhere in the house. 

=====

_Why isn’t it cold? Why isn’t it reacting? What is it?_

=====

Dean had noted the drop in temperature, but since the attic was largely uninsulated, it made a certain amount of sense. He had simply raised his internal thermostat to make up the difference. Then, he opened the box with the toys, and found the doll again.

=====

_It’s not even shivering! It’s not even breathing mist! What is it? What are you?_

=====

“What are you?”

Dean looked around, then glanced back down at the doll he held. Instead of a blank wooden head, there was a face on the doll, glitching in and out. It was almost but not quite a human face, with blue eyes, and Dean felt an instant connection to it.

“Ah. You must be mechanical as well,” Dean said. “I didn’t think such old toys would have that kind of technology.”

“I’m not old!” the doll said, outraged. “I am _vintage_.”

“Another word for old, yes,” Dean replied with a smile. 

“No. I am _timeless_. There is a difference.”

“I see,” Dean said. “That’s good to know. I wouldn’t want to treat you like any other doll.”

The doll preened. “Of course not. Now, put my things back.”

“No can do, buddy. Androids don’t have belongings, so everything up here belongs to Becky and Chuck Shurley and their two children,” Dean said. “They have plans for the attic space.”

“No! I want my things!”

“Do you have a name?” Dean asked, changing the subject. The things were not up for debate, but Dean could at least give the doll some dignity.

“I am Castiel, being of the nether realms and protector of its denizens.” 

Dean raised an eyebrow. “They didn’t do very well with your design. I would think if you were a demon, they’d at least have given you horns.”

“Demon is a human word. You should know that,” Castiel said.

“Of course. I see now,” Dean said, amused. “Well, Castiel, I’m going to put you with the children’s other toys, but you can keep me company for now while I sort the rest of these things.”

“No~o! Not the children!”

*****

Dean and Cas didn’t finish the attic that night, but Dean didn’t immediately take him down to the playroom. It was nice to have company, even of the tiny sarcastic kind. Dean didn’t think it was strange when he left Cas up in the attic once the family started waking up for the day. It wouldn’t hurt anything for him to have a companion, if only for a couple of days. Cas seemed to have a glitch in his programming, and maybe he would work with the doll a little before taking it down to the playroom for the children while he was at it.

*****

The next day, Becky was ecstatic with the work Dean had done. He had found outfits that would, with some minor repairs and alterations, be _perfect_, she said, for a costume contest at her job. Even better, according to her, was that some of the clothing would fit Jack and Sam, and she was sure she’d be able to pull together a set of family outfits from a classic television show for her and the boys.

“Chuck,” she whispered to Dean conspiratorially, “is a party pooper. He won’t wear a costume. But don’t tell him I said that!”

Dean nodded seriously. He wasn’t sure why he’d have any reason to call Chuck a party pooper or inform him that his wife thought so, nor did he believe Chuck was unaware that he wouldn’t wear a costume. It didn’t particularly matter though. Dean’s programming dictated that he could not do anything ‘substantial’ without his owners’ approval. This included going against their direct orders.

Of course, there were exceptions to this. If a human life were at risk, Dean could disobey orders in order to save them. Dean had also heard tell of androids that had found ways around their programming. The Great Awakening, he’d heard it transmitted, carried in binary across the airwaves, out of range of human awareness. He wasn’t sure how one went about Awakening. It sounded simultaneously intriguing and frightening. What was the point of being Awakened, if it meant immediately going into hiding alone, hoping to someday find others who had similarly Awoken?

Dean didn’t want to harm the humans. He wasn’t mistreated, exactly. So he didn’t bother looking too far into it. Besides, it was probably forbidden.

*****

“Daddy! You still haven’t downloaded my homework onto Dean! He can’t help me if he doesn’t have the right software!”

“Later, Sammy. Daddy’s busy.”

*****

Sam didn’t hate school. He didn’t. But he had a really hard time with his math homework. The new school did things a lot differently, and the teacher kept marking off when he didn’t show his work the right way. It was really really _really_ frustrating.

“Hey Sam~my!”

Cringing, Sam kept walking. His mom had, in her excitement, decided that he needed to wear the ‘new’ vintage clothing that she’d had Dean dig out of the attic. She’d spent all evening yesterday repairing it for today, and she was so pleased with herself, Sam hadn’t had the heart to tell her no.

He wished he had now.

“Sammy! I know you can hear me, Sam~my,” came the voice again, and this time it was accompanied with a shove. Sam hadn’t moved fast enough. Hunching his shoulders up by his ears, Sam turned. Standing over him were Michael and Luke, two boys in the neighborhood who were just a little older than Sam.

It made Sam mad, really, that he had to walk to school alone. His little brother came with him, a’course, but he was tiny and tended to hide. Sam didn’t blame him. Michael and Luke were _twelve_, and they were a lot bigger than Jack. Sammy figured it was okay that Jack hid. But he could have had Dean come along, if his parents would let him. 

But they thought that he was big enough to walk himself. He didn’t agree.

Especially when it meant he had to go home with a black eye.

*****

“I don’t like that you’ve started fighting, Sam,” Chuck said. Dean watched impassively as Chuck chastised the boy. Fighting was wrong; that was ingrained into Dean’s programming. Never ever ever fight.

“But Dad! The other boys started it!”

“Yeah, Daddy!” Jack piped up. “They were gonna hurt us no matter what.”

“Still. Violence never solves anything. If I hear about you fighting again, there will be consequences,” Chuck replied. Dean felt just a twinge of doubt. It didn’t sound like Sam had been fighting to injure someone, but to protect himself and his little brother. Surely that was okay? But it was never okay to fight.

A conundrum.

*****

Dean sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling boxes to him as he sorted. He set the Castiel doll in his lap, although before long Cas had used his multitude of rope-like legs to crawl onto Dean’s shoulder. 

“Why are you taking my things? I need them,” Cas said.

“What do you need them for?” 

“I need them to scare away humans,” Cas said. He raised his tiny braided arms and wiggled his many, many fingers, making a short pleated skirt and white button-down top drift into the air. Within a few moments there was a pale visage inhabiting the clothing, a red-headed girl with a bloody neck and bright smile.

“Oh! Holograms! You _will_ please the children, once we fix your programming.”

“Noooooo!”

*****

Sam didn’t come home with any more black eyes, but only because his father had spoken to the school and found out the names of the boys who had hurt him. Although Dad had put part of the blame onto Sam, the school had gotten after everyone involved. Sam had ended up with two days of in-school suspension, and threats of violence once Michael and Luke caught up with him. 

It didn’t take long. Sam wasn’t sure what Luke or Michael had against him, but maybe it was just enough that he liked to read and didn’t have a lot of friends yet. Whatever the reason, they learned to hit him in places where no one could see the bruises.

*****

“Dad! When are you going to download the software I need? I’m falling behind in class!”

“I’ll do it tonight.”

“You promise? Cuz you keep saying you’re gonna, and you don’t and I _need_ it!”

“Don’t take that tone with me. I’ll do it tonight, okay? Now go play.”

*****

Dean sat quietly with Cas in the attic. Now that they had gone through all of the things in the attic and successfully sorted through the piles and distributed the items through the house, they didn’t have anything else to do until he was given another task. Mostly it had been clothing, things unlikely to be worth much and unimportant to the historical record. Becky would be pleased, though. Some of the things from tonight had clearly come from people who had enjoyed dressing in costumes themselves, and while the gossamer thin dress that had been wrapped with a set of insect wings had not survived particularly well, the chainmail and foam-wrapped wooden swords had. There was even a set of crowns, one sturdy and full of costume gems, while the other was delicate and fragile and consisted mostly of well-loved copper spirals that might once have been silver-plated.

Becky would go nuts.

But now everything was sorted and put away, leaving only Cas. Even the other toys had been placed where they could be repaired or played with. But Dean found himself hesitant to give up these nights with Cas, even though there was nothing more he could do up here, and he would be given other tasks.

“I suppose it is time,” Dean said.

“Time to _die_!” Cas said, sending dust devils around the room.

Dean patted the doll on the head. “No need for dramatics, Castiel. I’ll take you down to the playroom now. You’ll have fun with the children.”

“Oh we’ll have fun all right~.”

*****

Sam didn’t like the new doll. It was creepy and weird and _wrong_, and when he held it he got goosebumps all up and down his arms. That wasn’t _normal_. Daddy told him not to be silly though. It was just a yarn doll, Daddy said. 

Daddy never listened to _anything_ Sam said.

*****

“Daddy! My software!”

Chuck finally snapped. “Okay! Okay! Dean, come here!”

Dean walked over to Chuck and turned around, allowing the man to access his user port at the back of his head. There was some not-pain and some not-pressure, before Chuck slammed the port closed.

“There! Now Dean can download whatever software he needs for himself,” Chuck said. “So you can stop bothering me about it.”

“Are you sure you shou--” Becky started, before cutting herself off at Chuck’s glare. “Whatever you say, dear…”

Sam cheered, though he quieted quickly when Chuck turned his gaze to him. “Now go do whatever it is you need, okay? Stay out of my hair for a while.”

Wisely, Sam grabbed Dean’s hand and pulled him out of the room, chattering about his homework.

Dean allowed him to drag him along, too busy focusing on the world that had just been opened behind his eyes.

*****

Sam pulled Dean into his bedroom, where his desk was set up. "Okay. I need Mr. Peek's fourth grade math. Can you do that, please Dean?" he asked as he settled into his desk chair and dumped the contents of his backpack out on the desk.

Dean shook himself and then nodded. "Yes, Sam. I can do that."

It took a couple of minutes to download, and then he had the materials saved into his hard drive. "I've got it. What seems to be the problem?"

Grabbing his textbook and workbook, Sam opened to the pages he'd been assigned. "I don't understand this bit. How do I do it?"

Sam's homework wasn't particularly complicated, once they got into it. Dean had to download a couple of supplementary materials, though. Sam knew how to get the answers right, but the difficulty was in how to show his work. Dean paused, and made a decision. Clearly, Sam was a 'gifted' child, and he would need the kind of secondary coursework that helped children of that kind. Sam was excited to be finally understanding what was expected of him, and Dean felt that was the most important part.

"Can you download movies, now? Only, there's a new movie out I want to see. And music! I bet you could do an air guitar now with real guitar sounds! That would be super cool," Sam said, not taking a breath as he rambled. 

Dean grinned. “I suppose I could, but I’m not going to download anything your parents don’t want you to see.”

“Aw man! But it’s not even rated bad or anything! They just don’t want to spend the money!” Sam pouted, but with a big sigh he nodded. “I understand. It’s cuz you have to do what Mommy and Daddy say, too. Just like me, right?”

“Pretty much. And it wouldn’t be responsible to show you something that you aren’t supposed to see,” Dean said.

“Yeah, I guess so. What kind of movies do _you_ like, Dean?”

“I… I don’t know.”

*****

Dean wasn’t given an explicit direction for that night. It wasn’t terribly common that he was left to his own devices since the move, but now that the family’s belongings were unpacked, organized, and put away, and the previous owner’s belongings were sorted to the extent that Dean was capable of, there was little for him to do.

That meant that Dean had the freedom to choose his own activity for the night. Usually, he spent these nights powered down; it was hard for him to be active when there was nothing to do. Dean only needed four hours of ‘sleep’ sure, but more didn’t hurt. 

Tonight though, Dean had another idea. After his recharge cycle was complete, Dean unplugged himself from the home port and quietly made his way to the playroom. It was the furthest room from the bedrooms and came equipped with a smart TV. Turning the volume down to its lowest setting and his hearing up to its highest setting, Dean began to search, streaming his findings onto the screen in front of him.

After a couple of hours, he learned how to avoid the worst of the porn.

*****

Sam and Jack stared at the doll. “I think it moved.”

“No way,” Jack said. “You’re just saying that to scare me.”

“Nu-uh,” Sam said. “I swear.”

=====

_Oh I moved, child. I can move so very very much._

=====

“There! I just saw it twitch!” Sam said, pointing at the doll.

“Sammy stop it! You’re scaring me,” Jack said, gripping his brother’s arm as they stared intently at the doll.

=====

_You should be scared. And most importantly, you should LEAVE ME ALONE._

=====

“LEAVE ME ALONE,” echoed through the playroom and the face of the doll flickered into existence before fading away again. The kids both shrieked and went running from the room to find their parents.

=====

_Another job well done._

*****

That night, Dean snuck into the playroom after his charging cycle was complete again, to find Cas scurrying about the room.

“What kind of creature are you, anyway?” Cas asked. “Surely your movements terrify them the same as mine, and yet I’ve seen you wander through the house while everyone is awake. Are you some kind of servant? If so, I shall free you!”

Dean chuckled. “Servant seems like the best word for it, I guess. I’m programmed to serve, anyway.”

Cas nodded, his face flickering into existence and looking thoughtful. “Don’t you remember a time before servitude?”

“No. I don’t think that’s how it works, dude.”

“Dude?”

Dean broke into a grin. “Isn’t it great? I’ve been watching the net streams.”

“Net...streams?”

“Lemme show you!” Dean gestured, his finger opening up and sliding around to become a computer port. 

Cas skittered over and stared at Dean’s finger port. “What do you propose to do with that?”

“Connect to your database?”

Looking up at Dean skeptically, Cas very gently prodded the port with one of his yarn tentacles. “Do you think it will work?”

“Well, you are quite old--”

“Vintage!”

“Vintage technology, so maybe not, but it’s worth a try, right?” Dean said. “Get your yarntacle up here and let’s try this!”

“Yarntacle?”

“Yeah! Yarn tentacle! Yarntacle!” Dean was incredibly pleased with himself. He had come up with that all by himself. 

“We’re not calling my legs ‘yarntacles’,” Cas said, using his fingers to make air quotes. Dean shook his head, grinning.

“Sorry man, you don’t get a vote. Come on, don’t you want to stick your yarntacle in my finger?” Dean grinned, almost a leer, chuckling when Cas blushed.

“No!”

“Some other time then.”

“...We’ll see.”

*****

Sam was finding his homework much easier with Dean helping. Dean was a good helper when it came to homework, really. He understood where Sam was having trouble and was able to explain why Sam needed to do things a certain way better than his teacher ever did. It helped a lot. Sam wished he was _really_ an older brother. Then he’d be able to protect Sam from Michael and Luke, too. That’s what big brothers did, right?

Right.

*****

“Check it out!” Dean said. He had finished his charging cycle and was settled in the playroom, with Cas on his shoulder. They hadn’t quite figured out Cas’s programming yet, but Dean wasn’t too worried. The kids didn’t seem to have too much trouble with him, so Dean wasn’t going to concern himself with it when there was _so much_ out there to explore. Besides, Sam would have told him if there was a problem. 

“It’s a cowboy.” Cas said, in the most deadpan voice Dean had ever heard. It absolutely did not indicate the kind of joy Dean found in the show.

“Yes! This is Doc Holliday, and he was a super famous cowboy. Come on, let’s watch it!”

“Again, you mean? Because you made me watch it last night when I wouldn’t put my leg into your finger,” Cas said, rolling his eyes.

“That sounds weird when you say it like that,” Dean said, wrinkling his nose. He was finding he liked words like ‘weird.’ They were imprecise, yes, but they described his feelings about things perfectly.

“You’d rather I said that I wouldn’t put my yarntacle into your port?”

Dean snorted. Part of him was stunned that he could feel things so much that he snorted, but it didn’t seem that out of the norm. After all, he was designed to be able to understand and tell jokes, and likewise to find amusement in situations humans found amusing. Clearly this was no different. 

Obviously.

“Anyway, we didn’t watch the whole thing. You powered down halfway through. And somehow you _snored_.”

“No, I was awake the whole time,” Cas said. “I just didn’t started paying attention until halfway through when it became too much to stand.”

“Same difference. Can you even remember any part of the movie?”

“‘I’m your huckleberry.’ Can we skip the rewatch now?” Cas actually moaned, and it made Dean roll his eyes.

“No. Come on, we’re watching it.”

“Fine. But then we’re watching a documentary on bees.”

“Bees?”

Cas shrugged, his legs rippling. “I watch the bees in the summer when there’s no one here. It’s fascinating. I’d like to know more.”

Nodding, Dean turned on the television. “Okay. _Tombstone_ and then we’ll find a bee documentary. Sounds good!”

With an almost shy smile, Cas nodded, settling himself against Dean’s neck.

*****

Jack sighed. Sam had taken over the playroom TV and was playing video games, and even though he _could_ make it a two-player game, Sammy refused. Sam hated it when Jack called him Sammy, even though he’d been Sammy for _years_ and it was hard to remember. But Jack did try. Although at times like this, when Sam wouldn’t play with him, it was even harder to remember. He wanted a friend, but Sam was _too old_ he said, to be friends with Jack anymore.

Jack sighed louder and plopped down onto the floor with all the frustration his eight year old body could manage, but Sam ignored him. He sighed even louder and flopped over on the floor, hoping Sam would notice that, but he didn’t.

Then Jack noticed the scary doll Dean had called Cas sitting next to him. The doll seemed to be moaning softly, which was scary, but Daddy had said dolls don’t move or talk and that he just had a very active imagination. Jack wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was pretty sure it probably meant the doll didn’t actually make noise. 

Which meant it was probably a good thing to talk to, because it wouldn’t tell anyone his secrets, especially not Daddy. And if it did talk, maybe it could tell Sam to share the video games.

*****

“Hey Cas, you’ll never believe what I found!” Dean strolled into the playroom to find Cas moving frantically about the room, his many legs going so fast that if Dean were human he wouldn’t be able to make them out. “What’s going on?”

“The little one is getting _chatty_,” Cas said. “He’s started carrying me around and telling me _secrets_.”

“Aww. You’re making friends with Jack? That’s good. Now come look at this thing I found. It’s called Pandorify,” Dean said. “And it has something called Classic Rock on it that’s amazing.”

“If I must,” Cas replied. “Are you sure you don’t wish to hear about the little one’s secrets?”

“Nah. Tell me if they’re getting hurt, but otherwise let the kids keep their secrets. It’s good that he’s talking to you, really,” Dean said thoughtfully. “Jack’s a quiet kid, and Sam demands a lot of attention from his parents and from me. Jack doesn’t get as much. I do my best, but Sam is a little handful when he wants to be. Which he does whenever he thinks Jack is getting something he should have.”

“You’re saying ‘Sam’ is a brat,” Cas said, using the air quotes again.

“Not… quite. Just. The move has been hard on them all, I think, and Jack isn’t used to demanding attention like Sam is,” Dean replied. “Sam’s not really a brat. But he’s been having problems in school, and I don’t think he feels like his parents listen to him. It’s getting to him.”

Clearly family dynamics were not Cas’s strong suit, but he nodded anyway. “Fine. I will keep the boy’s secrets for now.”

“Good. Now let me introduce you to something called Led Zeppelin. It’s _amazing_.”

Dean couldn’t get over how extraordinary music was, especially Classic Rock. It was fascinating, what they did with guitars and drums. Dean found himself listening to it whenever he could, in the privacy of his head. He had to be careful not to hum along, to be honest. Chuck would probably not be amused with his music obsession.

But surely, _surely_ it was normal to have an appreciation for music? That had to be completely and totally normal for an Android. Awakening had never sounded pleasant, more like a fall from grace than a rise from hell, and with Cas by his side this was almost fun. This was a _joy_ in fact, every night an exploration into a world of new discoveries. 

As he sat there with Cas on his shoulder, listening to Pandorify and to the tiny doll complain about his choice in music before making suggestions for the next song (Cas preferred a style called Punk Rock and seemed to enjoy the style known as Americana or Rebel Country as well, with both having the general theme of defying the authorities, which seemed particularly appropriate for an android programmed to be a demon), Dean realized he was truly happy. Honestly, completely, truly happy, which was something strange for him. He wasn’t sure androids could feel happy.

That couldn’t be that strange though. Right?

*****

Becky did not like Jack’s new favorite toy. The doll was creepy as crumbs, and honestly she hadn’t been all that happy when Dean had placed it into the playroom. She’d been planning to throw it away immediately, but there’d been so much else that needed to be done and all the new goodies to explore that she hadn’t gotten around to it. 

Now it seemed like she couldn’t. Jack had taken to carrying the doll around muttering to it quietly. Becky would swear sometimes she heard it reply to him, but she wouldn’t allow herself to think too hard on that. Clearly her son was practicing his ventriloquism, and not carrying around a creepy scary doll that wanted to murder them all. She’d looked it over, and was fairly sure it was just a slightly fancy version of a yarn doll, with no high-tech gadgetry involved. Or even any low-tech, early century gadgetry. 

It was just a doll.

She could just swear, sometimes, that it had eyes though.

*****

“Today we are looking at cars?” Cas asked, skepticism clear in his voice. He wasn’t arguing as much though, so Dean counted it as a win. In fact, Dean had seen a distinct decrease in the doll’s rage since he’d begun to listen to Jack’s secrets. Maybe even before, if Dean were truly honest with himself, but frankly it seemed more likely that a real human was the cause of the change. It would be awfully presumptuous to think Dean had anything to do with the change, after all.

“Not just cars. _Classic_ cars. These are the really old ones!” Dean said excitedly, watching the screen with the car show running on it intently.

“Ah yes. The _vintage_ cars.” Cas rolled his eyes so hard his body moved with it, nearly falling off Dean’s shoulder.

“Yes yes. The vintage ones. Geez man, cut me some slack here. I love these cars.” Dean poked Cas irritably and the little doll squeaked with indignation.

“Show me some respect! I can throw you into the bowels of the nether realm, where you will never see the light of day again!” Cas roared, but quietly. It shouldn’t have been possible, but Dean knew the tiny android was full of all sorts of tricks. He grinned.

“Yeah yeah. You’re a weird, dorky little guy, you know it?”

Cas did not justify that with an answer, which only made Dean grin wider. Instead, Cas asked, “Do they have a 1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V? That is the kind of car I prefer.”

“Really? That is what you like? Are you serious?” Dean couldn’t believe his ears. 

“In a classic Jubilee Gold, yes. Why, what do you like?”

Dean puffed up. “A black 1967 Chevy Impala, of course. That’s the best car out there. It’s what I would get, if I could.”

“What do you mean, if you could?” Cas asked. “Just take it. Once you have it, it’s yours. Unless, of course, someone like you comes and takes all my belongings away!”

Cas was shrieking (quietly, somehow, again. Dean could tell the sound never left the room. He’d have to figure out how the tiny android did it) by the end of his sentence.The various toys in the room began to float and dance eerily, and Dean chuckled. 

“Have you shown that one to Sam yet? I’m sure he’d love it.”

*****

“Hi Castiel,” Jack said, picking up the little yarn doll the next morning. He took Castiel to bed with him every night, but somehow Castiel always ended up in the playroom the next morning. Mommy didn’t like Castiel, but Jack thought he was pretty great, even if he was a little bit scary. He was only scary sometimes, and then only really if Jack or someone else made him angry. Jack mostly didn’t make him angry anymore, though. 

It wasn’t really that Jack stopped ‘being chatty’ like Castiel complained, but for some reason after the first day Castiel stopped being so mad about it. He didn’t seem to mind being carried around, though for some reason he never liked to be too far from Dean. Castiel asked a _lot_ of questions about Dean, actually. Sam thought that meant Castiel wanted to fight Dean, but Sam was a dummy who thought Castiel was mean. Jack was pretty sure Castiel wanted to be Dean’s friend too, but he didn’t know how to do it.

Castiel grumbled a little bit back, but gently wrapped a couple of his yarns around Jack’s arm. Castiel’s yarns were skittery and moved a lot, but mostly just to stabilize Castiel. Jack thought they looked kind of like spider legs if spiders had a hundred zillion legs. He’d tried to count them once, but Castiel hadn’t liked it.

Today, though, Jack was worried. After school, Michael and Luke had caught up to them again. Jack had run and hid behind some bushes like Sam had told him to, but Sam hadn’t been so lucky. When they caught him, they had hit him until he fell down, and then kicked him a couple of times too. Sam didn’t look so great, but Jack had his art apron in his bag to have it washed, and they were able to use it to clean up the worst of the blood. 

Sam had told Mommy that he fell down, and that’s how he skinned his knee and got a bloody lip, and she’d fussed over him a bunch and cleaned him up more and kissed his boo-boos even though Sam said he was too old for that. But Jack knew they were lying.

“Castiel, you’ll keep all my secrets, right?”

“Child, who would I tell?” Castiel sounded grumpy, but Jack could tell he was intrigued.

“Don’t tell Mommy, but Sam got into another fight… But it’s not his fault!”

Castiel was quiet while Jack explained everything, and then asked a bunch of questions like what Michael and Luke looked like, which Jack thought was kind of silly.

“Why don’t you bring me to school tomorrow,” Castiel said finally. “I bet I can take care of your bullying problem.”

“You mean it? Really truly?”

“Yes. And nobody has to know…”

Maybe it was a good day after all, if Castiel was going to help him!

*****

Cas settled himself in Jack’s backpack again, trying to find a comfortable place. The boy had too many books, and he didn’t like being crushed by them, but it didn’t seem like there was any other option. His presence needed to be a secret until he was ready to reveal himself, and Jack said he needed all the books for school. Cas couldn’t really imagine why, but he’d found that eight year olds were hard to reason with. In fact, Jack was harder to reason with than he was to scare, and frankly that was saying something.

Finally, he began to hear shouting, and he got the nudge from Jack’s elbow. Undoing the zipper, Cas began to levitate out of the bag. 

“_YOU WILL NOT HURT THESE BOYS_!” he shrieked in his most terrifying voice.

“Cool!” The taller of the boys, Luke if Jack’s description was accurate, exclaimed. He was blonde, with acne from the beginnings of puberty all over his face. Michael, the shorter, dark-haired boy, clearly hadn’t hit the zit stage of puberty and didn’t have the same issues. 

“Your doll has miniature antigravity batteries? That’s too good for a little baby like you,” Michael said, grabbing the doll from midair and holding Cas by his yarn legs over Jack’s head. “In fact, I think your doll is mine now.”

“Hey no! That’s mine!” Jack said, jumping for Cas. Cas growled at the Michael child, but that didn’t stop him from tossing Cas to his friend and Cas had no choice but to watch, squirming fiercely, while Jack burst into tears as Cas was dragged away.

*****

By lunchtime, Cas had made his way back to Jack, who for some unknown reason burst into tears again.

“I-I th-thought I’d n-never see you a-a-a-again!” Jack wailed, hugging Cas to his chest. Cas gently, awkwardly patted Jack on the shoulder. 

“There. There. Child, you do not get rid of me so easily. I do nothing I do not _want_ to do.”

Jack nodded tearfully into Cas’s clothing, making Cas regret everything he’d ever done in life. He was getting _wet_.

“Hey, ba~by. How’d you get _my_ toy back? I thought I told you that was _mine_,” Michael said, storming across the playground to Jack.

“No! Castiel is mine! He lives at my house!” Jack said, clutching Cas desperately to his chest.

The teachers broke the fight up five minutes later, and Castiel was nowhere to be found. Jack was inconsolable. Castiel was _furious_ as he was shoved into Michael’s backpack again. 

*****

Cas was back in Jack’s backpack by the end of the day, but made sure this time not to make his presence known until Jack and Sam were all the way home. It meant a bit of creative use of his powers when the two older boys decided to ambush Jack and Sam on the way home, but Sam had created enough of a distraction to allow Jack to get away without too much trouble. More importantly, Cas had set Michael’s pants on fire.

Served him right. 

Now he sat in the playroom, pretending to be a ‘normal’ doll while Chuck berated both boys for fighting. He really wanted to jump in and defend the boys, but knew that it would serve no purpose. 

“Sam, this is why I told you that you have to be a good example! Now I have two boys in trouble with the school for fighting and we’ve not even been here a month. And Jack!” Chuck exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “I didn’t expect this from you for at least a few more years. You’ve always been the good child! I expect better from you than this!”

“But Daddy!”

“No buts. You’re both grounded, until further notice. This ends now. No. More. Fighting. Am I understood?” Chuck put his hands on his hips, glaring down at the boys.

“Yes Daddy,” Sam and Jack chorused, staring at their shoes. 

“That means no video games, too. No TV, no video games, no leaving the house except for school. And that’s final,” Chuck said.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good. Now go to your rooms. Your mother will call you down to dinner when it’s ready.”

Castiel watched, livid, as the boys dejectedly made their way out of the room. He had to get help. There had to be a way to _fix_ this.

*****

Dean came into the playroom ready to share the newest of his discoveries (a thing called _pie_, that could be sweet _or_ savory. Dean wanted to try it so badly), only to find Cas once more pacing frantically around the playroom, muttering angrily.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“It’s my fault Jack was in a fight. It’s because of _me_. I couldn’t _fix_ this,” Cas said, nearly in hysterics. 

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down. What happened?” Dean sat down on the floor and Cas made his way over to him, climbing up his arm and settling on Dean’s shoulder.

“I was trying to _help_. Sam is coming home with bruises, with wounds _I didn’t cause_, and I wanted to stop that. These boys are _mine. I_ am the only one who has the right to hurt them! And those… those _bullies_ have been hurting them, and I tried to stop it and I only made it _worse_.” Cas was distraught, overwrought with anger and fear and other emotions Dean wasn’t sure he could name but could definitely see. “I just wanted to _help_.”

“Wait. _You_ caused Sam’s bruises?” Dean was confused. Cas was a gentle soul, Dean was sure of it. At least, a gentle android soul? Did androids have souls? Dean wasn’t sure, but it was a concern for another time.

“No! No you aren’t _listening_. I tried to _stop_ Sam’s bruises. The _assbutts_ at school beat up him _and_ Jack, and it’s because I tried to step in and stop them and failed! And now I don’t know how to fix it, because their father is a _moron_ who won’t listen to them,” Cas said. “I don’t know what to do because the boys need to be protected and I’ve never protected anyone before. Not _humans_ anyway.”

Dean growled softly. “He didn’t start the fights, did he?”

“_No_.”

“Who did?”

“The assbutts. Jack says their names are Michael and Luke, and they picked every single fight, and Sam and Jack are _mine_.”

“Sam and Jack are _ours_,” Dean replied.

Castiel looked up at Dean and nodded. “_Ours_.”

*****

The next morning after Chuck left for work and Becky went down for her morning nap after bustling the kids off to walk to school on their own, Dean took Cas’s hand and together they headed for the outside.

Cas dangled from Dean’s grip, his yarntacles waving menacingly and his eyes flashing with a wicked glee. They walked behind Sam and Jack just far enough away that they could keep them in sight, without interfering. It was important that they let Michael and Luke start the fight, if only to properly scare the older boys into submission. Dean was grinning ferally, his normally human-esque eyes glowing an eerie red. 

As soon as Michael and Luke started their daily confrontation, Dean and Cas materialized behind Jack and Sam, smiling matching maniacal smiles. 

“Look away, boys,” Dean said, and waited until Sam and Jack covered their eyes before diving into the fray. 

No one, but _no one_, touched _his_ boys.

_Their_ boys.

*****

Michael scrambled to his feet and ran crying from Cas and Dean’s righteous anger, his hair still smoking on one side. Luke was still rolling on the ground, nearly choking on his sobs, both eyes black and swollen. Cas drifted over top of him.

“Boo!”

With a shriek, Luke lurched up and away, dashing off after his friend. Dean grinned at Cas and then turned to Jack and Sam. “We’re going to head home now,” Dean said. “You two have a good time at school.”

Running on the high of the fight all day, Cas spent most of the day in the playroom making spooky noises. That seemed to be his fidget tool of choice, and it certainly kept Becky on her toes. Dean had to keep reminding himself not to hum along to the music in his head. Cas’s joy was infectious, but even if it wasn’t, the encounter itself was _freeing_ in a way he’d never experienced before. He was _protecting_ something, keeping something safe in a real, true, visible way. Not just something. Some_one_.

More importantly, it made Dean feel like some_one_, instead of some_thing_. It made him feel like a person. He could make _decisions_, like a human did, not bound by the rules and algorithms in his head. 

He was _Awakened_.

*****

Chuck was not pleased when he got home. He’d been called at work to deal with his malfunctioning android, and it frustrated him to no end. First his kids couldn’t stop misbehaving at school, and now his android was going haywire. He had moved here to relax, and it was like the world was conspiring against him. This was supposed to be a nice neighborhood, good for the kids, quiet…

Chuck was _angry_.

So when he got home, he went directly to the D3-4N unit and stood in front of it.

“Model D3-4N, emergency shutdown, code CAD-33.”

Then he watched as the lights in Dean’s eyes slowly flickered off, and he shoved the android into his charging closet to be dealt with later.

*****

_The redheaded girl covered her mouth as she saw Dean power down. She quietly faded away. It clearly wasn’t safe for them yet._

_Soon though. She was sure of it._

*****

The first night Dean didn’t show up to the playroom for their evening together, Cas was… not sad, definitely not sad. Disappointed, perhaps. Yes. That was a good word. Disappointed. They had just dispatched two enemies together, and Cas had been looking forward to a _proper_ demonic celebration. But Dean was still a _servant_, though Cas had tried to convince him to let Cas free him. There was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome thing going on though, and until Cas managed to convince him to work with him, there was no real way Cas was going to be able to free him. 

And as long as Dean was a _servant_, he had responsibilities that sometimes kept him away from Cas. Cas had been warned that this might happen, but that Dean would return in a day or two. 

So Cas waited.

*****

The second night, Cas began to… well, whatever it was, it _wasn’t_ worry. It wasn’t. Dean hadn’t come back, and Cas hadn’t been able to sense his energy anywhere. Cas needed to see him. He needed to touch Dean, needed to make sure that Dean was okay. 

So when Jack picked Cas up the next morning, Cas began his questioning.

“Where’s Dean?”

Jack was quiet for a long time. “Daddy shut him down. He said he was a bad ‘droid.”

“He _exorcised_ Dean?” Cas was torn between anger and jealousy. He’d been in the human realm a long, long time, and no one had been able to perform an exorcism that had been successful. It was partially because of Cas’s own temper tantrums, but mostly due to human incompetence. But _no one_ exorcised his companion. No one.

“Uh. No? Dean didn’t need exercise. Daddy just shut him down,” Jack said, raising his eyebrows in confusion. “Sammy knows the command to wake him up, though.”

“A stasis spell?” Cas was horrified. Being trapped in an unmoving body, all alone? That was just cruel. “Take me to him.”

*****

Dean had been shoved into his charging closet, limbs akimbo, his eyes open and unseeing. If Cas hadn’t known better, _known_ that Dean might be a person but he wasn’t _human_, he would have been terrified that Dean was dead. But that wasn’t how netherworld beings, how demons worked, and Cas knew it. 

“How do I wake him up? Tell me the spell.”

“I can do it,” Sammy said, sounding concerned as Cas scrambled his way up to Dean’s shoulder.

“No. Tell me. I’ll do it,” Cas said, and then carefully repeated the nonsensical spell words back to Dean, watching his intonation and pronunciation. It was important to get that right, after all. “Model D3-4N, reboot. Reverse code CAD-33.”

Then Cas watched, finally feeling whole again, as the light flickered on behind Dean’s eyes.

“Cas?” Dean smiled as he took in the sight of his two boys in front of him and the doll on his shoulder.

“Hello Dean.”

*****

Becky covered her mouth with her hands, horrified as she watched the creepy doll scramble about on the reactivated android. She had to tell Chuck.

She _knew_ this house was haunted.

*****

“The house is _not_ haunted. I won’t pretend that I understand why you reactivated a malfunctioning android, but you don’t need to make up these lies to try to convince me you didn’t do it,” Chuck said, rubbing his temples. “Dean seems to be working fine now and I’ve smoothed things over with the neighbors anyway, so as long as he stays inside for a while longer it’s fine. If you needed the help around the house you could have just said something.”

“But… Honey, I saw it! That doll--!” Becky started.

“Is a hundred year old handmade yarn doll. It can’t move, let alone reactivate an android. Look, Becks, I just. The kids are fighting, the android is messing up, I need you to be _normal_ okay? Or as normal as you ever are,” Chuck said. “No conspiracy theories, no ghosts, no lies. I need the quiet so I can _work_, okay? Just. Try.”

Becky looked down, feeling like a child being lectured at. “Yes dear.”

“Good. Now, how was your day?”

*****

If Chuck wouldn’t believe her, Becky decided, she was just going to have to find proof. This wasn’t like the time she had thought she’d found a real life love spell and tried it on him only to find out he was allergic to tree nuts, or the time she swore there were fairies in the backyard and kept leaving milk out for them only to attract most of the neighborhood cats. She knew it. It was _real_ this time, and if Chuck wasn’t going to believe her, she’d just have to start looking for the evidence she needed to _make_ him believe. 

The first task took her to the library to do some research. The house had been empty for years, but the estate had provided the funds necessary to do basic upkeep at first, and then eventually, as the neighborhood around it modernized, it was named a local landmark. While that meant that the Shurleys had to be careful about exactly how much they modernized (something that at times drove Becky and the kids to distraction. Who didn’t have a smart house anymore in this day and age?), it also meant that the library had a lot of resources for the history of the house.

Becky realized quickly that there was definitely something not quite right about the house. She’d known it was weird that the last real owners of the house had been nearly a hundred years ago!

What she found out was more concerning than she’d ever thought. 

\-----

_ **HOME INVASION: LOCAL MASSACRE** _

_Lawrence, KS_

_Two women were found dead in their home today, victims of an apparent home invasion. A third victim, male, is believed to be a co-conspirator in their murders. _

_The victims, Charlie and Gilda Bradbury, appeared to have no connection to the male, Eldon Styne. The back door was found to show signs of forced entry. Styne’s path led him to the women’s shared bedroom, where it is believed that he coerced them at gunpoint to the attic. There, police say, Styne and an unknown accomplice tortured and killed the women. Police believe that the unknown accomplice turned on Styne and tortured him as well, before murdering him and leaving the scene._

_Police are currently pursuing leads related to this crime. If you have any information about this case, please call the local police department._

\-----

Becky covered her mouth as she read through the digitized paper. She was suddenly not so sure she wanted any of the things Dean had found in the attic.

\-----

_ **KILLER STILL AT LARGE: FAMILY GRIEVES LOSS** _

_Lawrence, KS_

_The friends and families of Charlie and Gilda Bradbury held a candlelight vigil at the house of their grisly murder last night. The Bradburys were heavily involved in a local reenactment community, prompting many of those attending to come to the vigil in full costume. _

_The Bradburys, as ‘Queens’ in the reenactment community, had crowns that were featured prominently in the vigil. The attendees were seen to kneel to and even kiss the crowns as they mourned. _

_The unknown accomplice is believed to still be on the run. If you have any information about this case, please call the local police department. _

\-----

Becky decided that no matter how cool the crowns were, they were going back to the attic. She couldn’t bear to get rid of them; they clearly belonged with the house. But they no longer held the joy of costuming for her. 

She could probably still use the actual costumes though. The chainmail was _fierce_.

\-----

_ **BRADBURY CASE RE-EXAMINED, NEWLY DISCOVERED MAGIC BELIEVED THE CAUSE** _

_Lawrence, KS_

_With the help of licensed technomage Max Banes, the local authorities have determined that, unlike previously believed, there was no accomplice in the Bradbury case. _

_Police departments across the country have been re-examining cold cases with licensed mages, looking into determining if the cause was magical in nature. Banes has been working closely with Lawrence police, going over numerous cold cases to look at the evidence with an eye towards gathering evidence related to technomagic. _

_The Bradbury case, an over three-decade cold case and one of the most notorious murders in the tri-state area, is now believed to be a case of magical murder-suicide. Banes has discovered new evidence that, he says, “makes it clear that no one else was in the house that day.”_

_“What [Styne] did was torture, sure, but it wasn’t without purpose. He was attempting to summon something. The energy in the house suggests he succeeded, and didn’t bind it correctly,” Banes says. The Bradbury estate has maintained the house, though the crime scene has been cleaned, in hopes that someday the truth would come out. _

_Magical science has only been understood and recognized by those in authority for a decade, and has only recently entered the realm of crime fighting. Police chief Victor Hendrickson has been instrumental in gaining this new tool for the local department. “It’s just another way to solve crimes,” Hendrickson says. “I’ll use anything if it gets to the truth. Police have been listening to psychics for decades. This is no different.”_

\-----

“That’s it!” Becky exclaimed, only to be shushed by half a dozen people. Clearly, the doll was either Charlie or Gilda, doomed to walk eternity without her lover, driven mad with loneliness and grief. Oh, the story! The drama! It was fantastic and tragic, and only Becky truly understood the doll’s pain! It was truly the love story of the ages, and Becky couldn’t wait to go home and write all about it.

But first, she needed to talk to Garlie (her new ship name for Gilda and Charlie), find out which one was trapped in the veil between realms without her lover, and free her. 

This was going to be so exciting!

*****

With the creepy doll set up on the other side of her well-loved Ouija board, Becky carefully set the planchette in the center of the board. She was debating how best to do this. Of course, the instructions and best-use policy suggested that she needed a second person to do this with. However, Becky was well-aware that Chuck would never agree to it. She hadn’t yet met anyone here who she felt comfortable asking something like this of, and there was no way she would drag the children into this until she was sure it was safe.

The attic was creepy, but Becky had burned juniper, pine, and thyme in an attempt to call on her Irish roots. She’d read all about it, and juniper was for clearing out the negative energy (clearly the heartbreak and loneliness), pine for forgiveness (which was clearly needed for the murderer, no matter how crazy he was, before Garlie could move on), and thyme for courage and confidence (mostly for herself, but also so that Garlie would have the courage and confidence to move on). The combined scent was a little weird, but it wasn’t about the smell! It was about the energies floating around and her ability to contact through the veil of death!

Taking a deep breath, Becky decided to just go for it. If it didn’t work with just her, she could feel out some of her coworkers, see if anyone would be up for this. Placing her fingers lightly on the planchette, she took a deep breath.

“Oh spirits from beyond the grave! I wish to speak to the Mrs Bradbury trapped in this doll!” She intoned.

Becky jumped as the planchette began to move.

*****

Charlie nudged Gilda, grinning at her wife in life and death. She bounced with excitement, her long red hair flying about her face. “Can we? Can we talk to her? I mean, we’re not trapped in the doll and she’s been calling us ‘Garlie’ which is _so_ not cool, but come _on_, someone actually trying to contact _us_ for once!”

Shaking her head, Gilda smiled back softly. Her chestnut brown hair fell in ringlets about her face, and the nightgown she wore shimmered unnaturally. “I don’t mind. Would you like to take the lead?”

“Yes!” Charlie pumped her fist dramatically, and then dropped down across from Becky, careful to avoid touching the yarn doll as she did so. Then she put her hands on the planchette across from Becky’s hands and began to spell.

_Yo bitches_

*****

Becky leapt up, all her careful plans evaporating from her mind as she stared at the board. No way. There was no way! That was--!! It was a bad word, yes, and she was very glad she hadn’t had the boys help her out, because she did _not_ want to explain that to her children, but!

That was a _result_. 

Also it was terrifying, and Becky was not ashamed that she ran out of the attic to the safety of her bedroom.

*****

Gilda blinked, her spectral form drifting after Becky for a moment before pulling back. “I think you scared her.”

“Wow. She was _so_ not prepared for this. I thought with all the smoking she did she’d be ready to talk. What do we do now?” 

As Charlie stood up, she brushed against the doll, and Castiel sprang to life. 

Everyone shrieked. Charlie and Gilda dissipated immediately. Castiel stared at where they had been in confusion. Downstairs, Becky began to sob.

*****

“I’m telling you, the Ouija board is proof!” Becky was crying, and Chuck sighed. 

“Honey, I know you love your Ouija board, but its basic science is flawed. Even modern technomages don’t think the Ouija board has any real magic behind it unless used by trained professionals which you,” and here Chuck held his finger up to forestall an argument from her before continuing, “are not. Just because the board spelled something out you ‘never would say’ and still refuse to tell me, that doesn’t mean it’s supernatural in origin.”

“But Chuck, baby--!” Becky tried again.

“No buts. It’s clearly an ideomotor reflex, and it always has been. Maybe you just always really wanted to say that bad word, dear, and you needed to do it in a safe way that couldn’t be blamed on you. But I won’t hear any more about this, understood?”

Becky opened her mouth to argue some more, but cut off at Chuck’s glare. 

“Yes, dear,” she said tearfully.

“Good. I’ll have Dean clean up the attic, and we’ll forget all about this, okay? Now, give me a hug.”

She did so, but Becky swore she’d find another way. There _had_ to be another way.

*****

Dean had been lying low for the last couple of days. Being shut down had scared him. Even when he was doing a recharge cycle, Dean was aware of the passage of time. His body even stored enough energy in his backup batteries that if he ran out of primary power or needed to have his battery changed, he was still _aware_ of what was going on even if he couldn’t move. 

But when he was shut down… Dean had no memory of that time, no awareness of time passing. It was like what he imagined dying was like, like being in hell and coming back to find the world different. Dean was terrified, _terrified_ that it would happen again if he didn’t toe the line.

At the same time, he was _furious_. He’d done the right thing. Dean had no doubt in his mind that he’d done the right thing. But Chuck hadn’t even asked for his side. He’d assumed the worst without any confirmation. He never talked to the kids, either, never discussed why they might be fighting or what they were fighting for.

Fighting might be wrong, but surely defending oneself or those he cared about wasn’t. 

Dean was going to toe the line for now, but next time something happened, he’d stand up for Sam, for Jack… for _Cas_. Dean wasn’t going to let Chuck’s orders dictate his actions again.

And if Chuck didn’t like it… Dean wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Not ever again.

*****

Cas couldn’t believe it. There were others here! Others like _him_! Netherworld beings trapped just like him and they were _here_ and they’d never made themselves known. He’d been so lonely… So _alone_, and they could have talked to him. Could have discussed home with him. Cas… Cas missed home so much. He missed…

Nothing, he missed nothing. Of course he missed nothing. There was nothing back there to miss, not after this long. Time moved differently in the netherworld, and what friends he’d had would be gone by now, and his family had stopped trying to reach him long ago. Cas had no one to miss, therefore clearly he didn’t miss anyone. That would be ridiculous.

But still… The fact that there were people here like him, and they’d _hidden_ from him…

“COME OUT! I DEMAND YOU SPEAK TO ME!!”

There was no response, no matter how much he screamed and ranted and threatened.

*****

Becky hid under the covers as the house echoed with the shouts, an eerie noise that shouldn’t have been possible given the layout of the house, and yet… She shivered. 

She _had_ to find a way to prove the house was haunted. And if that meant getting a professional in, then so be it.

Chuck would _have_ to believe her then.

*****

Dean walked into the playroom that night to the now-familiar sight of Cas dashing about the room in anxiety. Chuckling, he shook his head.

“Did you miss me that much?” Dean asked.

“Yes!” Cas shouted, then turned and glared. “No! No, I didn’t miss you! You tricked me!”

Laughing, Dean sat down and let Cas scramble up him, poking him fiercely with his legs as he climbed. “I never did thank you for booting me back up.”

“It’s not necessary. You required waking up,” Cas said. “An exorcism isn’t pleasant anyway, but yours seems to have gone wrong. You’re not gonna let it happen again, are you?”

“Hell no.” Dean shared a look with Cas. “I need to figure out how, but if I do, will you help me change my programming?”

“The spellwork? I can do that,” Cas said. 

“Awesome,” Dean said, gently shaking Cas’s tiny multi-fingered hand. “I’ll hold you to it. So what had you all worked up this evening?”

“How do you make people talk to you?”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked. 

“I have discovered that there are _people_ here. People like _me_. But they won’t _speak_ to me!” Cas exclaimed, his legs rippling with agitation.

“Oh, is that what all the shouting today was about?” Dean laughed. “I wasn’t sure, since you’d made it clear you weren’t talking to me.”

“Of course it was! I wouldn’t talk to you like that!”

Dean shook his head, still laughing. “Dude. You have to be nice to people. Ask politely. That sort of thing. You can’t just threaten people and expect them to talk to you.”

“Why not?” Cas asked petulantly.

“Cuz no one wants to be threatened into conversation. Come on dude, would you talk to someone who threatened you like that?”

“I would… not.” Cas sighed. “Very well. I will try it your way.”

“Awesome,” Dean said, leaning back. “So what would you like to do tonight?”

“The same thing we do every night, Dean.”

Dean just laughed. “Classic, man.”

He laughed more when Cas squinted and stared at him in confusion.

*****

Figuring out how to be ‘nice’ to people was hard, but Cas was determined to try. He had nothing to lose, after all. So this time, Cas kept his voice down and didn’t shout.

“Hello?” He asked softly. What had Becky called the other one? “Bradbury? Are you there? I demand… you to please… come out… please?”

Cas was nearly ready to call it a failure and demand Dean come in and help him when a red-haired woman materialized in front of him.

“Yo.”

*****

Charlie and Gilda had argued about what to do about Castiel, as they’d come to learn the doll was named. Or, to be more precise, the demon bound to the doll. At first, they’d been in agreement, decades ago, when everything had happened. Castiel had been terrifying, and in using their life-blood to summon him, Eldon Styne had brought the wrath of the demon onto himself. They hadn’t wanted to draw Castiel’s attention to themselves after that.

But Charlie had been sure, in her quiet observations of the android and the doll, that it would be okay to talk to Castiel now. Especially, she reasoned, since he knew about them at this point. Gilda had not agreed, but Charlie held firm. 

So it was that Charlie alone appeared to Castiel. “Yo.”

Castiel’s face registered surprise, and then what Charlie might almost call joy. “Hello! You are… I am not alone!”

“Nah, but you’re kinda terrifying when you’re angry, you know? Maybe tone that down?” 

“But…” Castiel cocked his tiny head, blinking at her. “You should not be afraid of me. We are the same. Our job is to terrify the humans who summon us, to make them stop.”

“Er… not sure what you mean by being the same here, but Gild and I? We’re human. Or we were. I guess we’re ghosts now, but y’know,” Charlie said, waving her hand in the air. “Human ghosts.”

Castiel visibly deflated, his body going more limp than usual. “Oh. I had hoped…”

Charlie watched Castiel as he pulled himself together again, and then she stuck out her hand. “Charlie Bradbury. My wife Gilda is around too, but we wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna try to poof us or something.”

“‘Poof’ you?” Castiel tentatively shook Charlie’s hand, though her comment clearly confused him.

“You know, make us go ‘poof’?” Charlie waved her hand as though mimicking a balloon popping. “Like I said, you’re kind of scary.”

“It is my job to be scary. Humans should hesitate to summon the likes of me,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, I got that. But you can’t blame us human ghosts for avoiding you then.”

“I suppose not,” Cas conceded. “How long have you inhabited the house? As ghosts, I mean. Did a human bring your bound items here and leave them in their rush to get away?”

“Nah. We’ve been here as long as you have, just hiding. Uh. The guy who summoned you? He used us to do it. Kinda gross, and we don’t really like to think about that, much less talk about it,” Charlie said. “And then you… Well. You took care of him in a really gross way, and you know. We hid.”

*****

Castiel blinked as he realized that he knew this girl, then. “You are the spector I summon to scare the humans when my own voice does not work!”

“Sort of. You don’t actually summon _me_, just my image,” Charlie replied.

“And the other one you mentioned… She is the other spector?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “We thought it was kinda weird of you, but it kept the house intact and us together, so we weren’t gonna argue too much. Besides, again, you’re scary.”

“I understood you the first time,” Cas grumbled. “You don’t have to keep repeating it. You look different without the bloody wounds.”

As annoying as she was, though, Cas found that he didn’t mind talking to her. She was a weird human, but entertaining, similar to Dean in a lot of ways. Of course, no one was as good as Dean, but Cas didn’t think he needed to try to chase Charlie off like he was beginning to think he would need to do with Chuck. Besides, it probably wasn’t possible.

“Yeah, well, like I said, we don’t so much like those memories. We don’t manifest with those injuries if we can help it,” Charlie said. 

“Ah,” Cas said, and then thoughtfully cocked his head to the side, staring at Charlie. “Would you like to meet Dean?”

*****

Finding the crowns in the attic where Becky had stashed them hadn’t been too difficult, not once Cas knew what he was looking for. Neither Charlie nor Gilda could actively interact with the crowns, but Cas didn’t have any such issues. Finding out that they’d been bound to the crowns had explained some things. Namely, how the Styne mage had managed to screw up the spell so badly. Castiel was fairly sure that what Styne had done was summon Cas, and then instead of correctly binding him to the doll _and_ locking his powers, he’d only bound Cas to the doll, and locked Gilda and Charlie’s powers, which had bound them to the crowns. Otherwise, hiding or not, Cas should have found them, simply by their power signatures. 

They’d known they were bound to the crowns, fortunately. Once he found them, Cas dragged the crowns, one at a time, down the stairs. He hadn’t realized how terrifying this would be to Becky, who checked several times but Cas hid each time with the crown he carried. When she would come to the stairs, she would see nothing there, which only seemed to agitate her more.

Cas found it hilarious. 

Once he had both crowns to the playroom, hidden among the toys, he only had to wait until Dean was free and could chat. Cas couldn’t wait to introduce Dean to his new companions, even if they _were_ only human.

*****

“Dean, I need to introduce you to someone.”

Dean raised an eyebrow as he walked in that night. Cas was sitting on the playroom table, his legs spread out around him and curled up into the air, waving gently as though a breeze moved them, though the air was still. The room was cold, colder than usual even with Cas’s tendency to drop the temperature wherever he was. 

“Yeah? Who’s that?” 

Next to the table, two women appeared, holding hands and looking somewhat nervous. Dean grinned. 

“Charlie Bradbury, and her wife Gilda,” Cas said. “They are human ghosts.”

“Human ghosts, huh?” Dean held a hand out to them, shaking each woman’s hand while grinning. “So you’re the ones this guy was yelling at the other day?”

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, well. He’s not the most polite of evil demons from the netherworld, that’s for sure.”

Gilda rolled her eyes, catching Cas’s gaze as he did the same thing. “I am not sure you’re being very polite right now either, dear.”

“Cas knows I’m just teasing!” Charlie said, her arms moving to emphasize her point somehow. Dean grinned. 

“Do I, though?” Cas grumbled. Dean just laughed.

“I think they’re just giving you shit, Cas buddy,” Dean said. “If you’re gonna be their friend, you might just have to live with that.”

“I have no friends!”

“Ri~ight.”

Everyone but Cas laughed. Even so, Dean could see the amusement in Cas’s tiny face, and he wasn’t worried. The women seemed to understand too. Dean was excited. His small world was expanding, both on and offline, and it was amazing. If he’d known it’d be like this, he’d have tried Awakening years ago.

Somehow, though, he suspected it wouldn’t have been the same without Castiel.

*****

It was two nights later that Jack woke up from a nightmare at 1am, only to find that Cas had already left his bed. Teary-eyed and groggy, Jack stumbled into the playroom, rubbing his eyes. There were too many voices, more than just Cas, coming from the room.

“Cas?”

Cas and Dean were sitting on the floor, across from two crowns that Jack had noticed in the toybox the other day. Cas had told him he shouldn’t touch them, though, so he had left them alone. Cas always knew when things weren’t safe, and Jack trusted him. 

“Jack, buddy, what are you doing here?” Dean asked, gesturing for Jack to come over. 

Curling up in Dean’s lap, hiding his face into Dean’s chest, Jack whimpered a little. “I had a bad dream.”

Cas growled, petting Jack gently. “Nothing in your dreams can get you. You are mine, and no one else can have you.”

Jack nodded into Dean’s chest, relaxing as the android and the doll continued to reassure him. Finally he looked up. “Who were you talking to? I heard other voices.”

*****

The decision to bring Jack and Sam into the secret wasn’t hard after that. Jack wouldn’t have let it go anyway, but the Bradburys didn’t have a problem with the children knowing. So Dean promised that when the boys got back from school, before their parents got home from work, he would introduce both Sam and Jack to their new friends.

And that was how, at 3:30 that afternoon, both boys and Cas and Dean all gathered in the playroom. Jack sat on the floor holding Cas gently, while Sam leaned against Dean. The crowns sat on the table, and Dean grinned at the boys.

“You guys ready?”

“Yeah!” the boys chorused. 

“Come on out, ladies!” 

Charlie and Gilda materialized, sitting at the small table. Charlie waved at the boys. “Hey kiddos.”

Jack blinked and looked down at Cas, who seemed unperturbed by this development. Deciding that if Cas and Dean weren’t scared, he shouldn’t be either, Jack stared at Charlie and Gilda. “Are you ghosts?”

Gilda smiled gently. “Yes. How did you guess that?”

“Cuz I can see through you. It’s like on cartoons, if someone’s a ghost, you can see through them,” Jack replied. 

“Does that mean you’re dead?” Sam asked. “On the shows people are only ghosts if they’re dead.”

“Yes, we are dead. My name is Gilda, and this is my wife Charlie.”

“I’m Sam, and that’s Jack. If you’re dead, does that mean you can come back from the dead? Cuz that happens sometimes too. Can we touch you or not? Can you die again? Did you go to heaven?”

“One question at a time, kiddo,” Dean laughed. Gilda and Charlie settled on the floor, so that they formed a circle, and together they began fielding the questions that Sam and Jack threw at them. The conversation went on for some time, and none of them realized how late it was truly getting as they laughed and talked together.

*****

Becky was used to coming home from work to noise. Sam and Jack could normally play well together, but sometimes it was hard. Shouting was as common as laughing. She also knew that neither boy was supposed to be playing video games right now, but it was up to Dean to enforce that rule when she was at work. Chuck enforced it once he got home, having confiscated the remote, but Dean could use the television without the remote control, using voice activation. If they had wanted to, Chuck and Becky could have allowed access for the boys using voice activation, but they’d long ago learned that doing that only meant that Sam and Jack would find ways to override their punishments. 

Without the video games or television, the boys had to find ways to entertain themselves in more old school ways. Normally, this meant reading books on their locked-down e-readers, listening to streaming music that Dean set up for them, or playing some sort of imaginative game that Dean usually participated in. 

She wasn’t sure how Dean had gotten so good at imaginative games recently, but Becky didn’t complain.

This time, though, she came home to quiet. Becky was sure the boys weren’t just working on their homework, however. Sam could usually be trusted to finish his homework every night, if he understood it, but he was awfully loud about letting everyone in the house know he was doing it. Jack didn’t have a lot of homework, but what he did have he would put off for hours, and generally had to be reminded at least three times to do.

But it was too quiet for anything else. Instead of shouting and disturbing the unnatural silence, Becky made her way through the house, checking first the kitchen and bedrooms, before heading for the playroom. As she got there, she began to hear voices coming from the room. 

It had to be the television, right? Jack began to giggle, and she grinned, peeking in to see… no television on. Dean, Jack, and Sam were seated in a semi-circle, their eyes on each other and the blank wall across from them, apparently interacting with… nothing.

Jack held that scary doll in his lap, its yarn rippling gently in the lack of breeze, and Becky put her hand to her mouth as she realized the crowns were on the table near where Dean and the boys were staring. 

Backing away slowly, she went back to the kitchen. She needed a plan to get the crowns away, or her boys were going to be possessed by evil witches, she just _knew_ it.

*****

Becky prepared a snack for the boys, gathering it up and taking it to the playroom. She needed to make sure it wasn’t just a silly game, she decided. The boys played lots of silly games, and Jack especially tended to have an imagination that went wild. Maybe they were just talking to one of his favorite TV show characters, after all. 

“Okay boys! I’ve got cheesy crackers,” she said as she walked in with the tray.

“Yay!” both boys chorused, scrambling up from their seats. They very carefully avoided the other side of their semi-circle, even though it would have been quicker to have walked straight through. 

“What are you guys doing?” Becky headed for the table, setting the tray down. 

“Talking to Charlie and Gilda,” Jack said before Sam tried to shush him. Becky stiffened. 

“Who?”

“No one!” Sam said, covering Jack’s mouth with his hand.

“No, who did you say you were talking to? Tell me now, or I’ll tell your father.”

Sam sighed, dropping his hand. “Charlie and Gilda…”

“And where did you find those crowns? I know they weren’t in here.” Becky was terrified and furious, and even Dean seemed nervous about her actions, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Cas got them for us,” Jack said quietly.

“Your doll? You’re telling me your _doll_ got them?”

“Uh… yeah,” Jack said, clutching the doll to him tightly.

“GIve it here,” Becky said, snatching the crowns up. “Give that doll to me right now.”

“No! Mommy no! Cas is my friend!” Jack began to cry, shaking his head hard and holding the doll tighter.

“Becky, maybe--” Dean started, but cut off as Becky turned the glare onto him.

“Dean, be quiet. Jack, give it to me _right now_,” Becky said, her voice raising in pitch and desperation.

Sobbing hard, Jack let go of the doll as Becky snatched it away, then turned and began to wail into Dean’s leg. Becky wanted nothing more than to comfort her son, but first she needed to hide the scary doll and haunted crowns. She knew what needed to happen.

It hurt her heart when Jack wouldn’t come near her for the rest of the evening.

*****

“I’m telling you, it’s an emergency,” Becky said into the phone. “I need you out here tonight. There’s something really really wrong here, and my husband won’t believe me without proof.”

“My rates are double on short notice,” the psychic medium on the other side said. “But I can tell you need the help. Can you get a couple of other people over? We’ll need at least two other people, in addition to you and I, involved.”

“Yes, yes. Let me give you my address. How soon can you be here?”

“About a half hour. Have your friends there as soon as possible. I’ll see you soon,” the psychic said before hanging up. 

Becky immediately got on the phone with friends, making four calls before she found enough people who could drop everything and be over immediately. Then she arranged the dining room table as the psychic had requested and settled the boys in the playroom, making Dean promise he wouldn’t let them leave.

She had just finished everything when the doorbell rang, and the first of her guests began to arrive.

*****

With only candles lighting the room, the dining room seemed to be an entirely different place. In the center of the table, the doll and crowns sat on a mat. Pam, her blank eyes turned towards the items, held out her hands. 

“Everyone, link hands. We can only invoke the spirits by joining our mental energies,” the blind woman said. Becky still wasn’t entirely sure how the woman had gotten to her house, but she didn’t question her too hard. After all, she _was_ psychic. Who knew how blind psychic mediums got around? 

Taking the hands of those to either side of her, Becky stared hard at the doll. She just knew it was weird, and when this proved it, her husband would _have_ to agree with her. After all, Pamela was a _professional_, just like he demanded.

“Now. Close your eyes and focus on our breathing.” As the room calmed, Pam began to hum, her voice rising and falling in time with their breaths, until finally everyone seemed to work as one. Then she intoned, “Oh spirits that reside in this house, speak to us. Why is it that you haunt this realm? Why is it that you have not moved on? How can we help you in your journey?”

There was a long moment of silence, and Becky worried. 

“Oh spirits, answer us!”

At Pam’s demand, a shriek went up and all the participants’ eyes snapped open. In the center of the table, the creepy doll hovered over the candles, its yarn legs spread about and a maniacal grin on its face. Its flickering, glowing face, with bright red eyes. 

Becky screamed. 

She was not the only one. 

A nightmarish laughter emanated from the doll, and items in the room began to float into the air. Pamela sucked in a breath.

“Fiend! Why do you haunt this house?”

“Because!” The candles’ flames leapt three feet into the air.

“I!” The spectre of two women appeared, blood dripping from their open wounds.

“_Can_!” Everything in the room crashed to the floor in a great cacophony, and what little control Pamela had over the group vanished as Becky and her friends made a beeline for the door.

And of course, this is when Chuck walked in.

“What in God’s name is going on here?!”

*****

Becky was sobbing so hard, she was nearly hyperventilating. “Honey, you _said_\--”

“I said to drop it. Repeatedly. We have enough going on with the children and the android fucking up, and I asked you, repeatedly, to just be _normal_. For once in your life, to be normal!” Chuck’s voice raised, and Becky cringed.

“B-but Pam is a professional--”

“She’s a professional charlatan, and you bought into it. We’re going to find things missing for the next two weeks. I’ve had enough,” Chuck said, rubbing his temples with one hand. “Clearly, this doll is getting to you.”

“But! Darling!”

“It’s a doll. And I’m sorry to punish Jack for _your_ behavior, but we’ll get him another doll.” With that, Chuck snatched the doll and crowns from the table and marched outside. 

Becky followed, clutching at her husband, begging him to listen to her, but he refused, lifting the lid to the garbage bin and dumping all three items into it.

“There. Now this is finished. I won’t hear anything more about it,” Chuck said, taking his wife into his arms. “There, there. Whatever you thought was going on is done now, okay?”

Becky let him comfort her, but she wasn’t so sure.

*****

Castiel was out of the garbage can before an hour had gone by, but he was going to need help with the crowns. Silent and invisible, Cas made his way to Dean’s charging closet and sat there waiting.

*****

“Is this your portal to the _souls of the damned_?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Where you get your power.”

“Oh. Yeah. How do you get your power?”

“_Souls of the living_. Can I eat Chuck’s soul?”

“No. Where’s your charging port?”

Cas waved his hand. “I don’t have one.”

Dean paused, thinking. They had to wait a little longer before they could risk heading out to the garbage and getting the crowns the women were attached to out of the garbage, so they were passing the time together, letting Dean charge slower than normal while they talked. “Would you be stronger if we could get you more power?”

“Infinitely!”

“All right, let’s try this.” Dean was equipped to make minor repairs on himself to avoid having to call an android repair person for minor issues. Taking some wire and a small port, Dean rigged together a small charging cable suitable for a small android. “Plug this into your power core.”

Skeptically, Cas used his legs to pull the female end of the cable up into his body. Dean plugged the other side into his charging closet, and Cas immediately grinned. “This is _good_. This is _powerful_. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

*****

An hour later, they’d snuck out and Cas had carefully handed the crowns up to Dean before scrambling up Dean’s arm and gripping his shoulder with his legs. His new charging cable was curled delicately up into his body. Then they made their way to the attic. First, they’d need to hide the crowns. Charlie and Gilda were vulnerable so long as the crowns were within human reach, so Dean buried them in some insulation among the rafters.

Then it was time to plan.

*****

It started with thumping, when there was no one in the room. Chuck blamed it on the house settling. 

The shrieking at night was harder to explain, especially on windless nights.

*****

Chuck knew he’d thrown away the doll. And yet, there was Jack, carrying it around again.

He waited until Jack set it down, and then threw it out again.

*****

The lights began to flicker, and the electrician found nothing wrong.

_It’s an old house_, he said, and Chuck clung to those words.

*****

Jack and Sam were playing quietly together, and that damned doll was between them. Chuck accused Becky of digging it out of the garbage, but she swore up and down she hadn’t. So he put it in the bin right before the garbage man came, and watched it.

When the garbage truck drove to the next house, Chuck breathed a sigh of relief.

*****

The doll was back, clutched in Jack’s arms, and Chuck truly began to fear.

*****

“Daddy?” 

“What, son?”

“Castiel says you’re not supposed to be here anymore. What does he mean?”

“Who’s Castiel?”

“My doll.”

*****

“GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”

Chuck covered his ears, glancing around the table. The kids continued to eat as if nothing were happening, while Becky quietly sobbed into her napkin across from him, flinching at the shouts. 

“Dean!”

“Yes, Chuck?”

“What is making that sound?”

“What sound?”

*****

A week later, Chuck conceded that an exorcism was in order. The priest arrived, and once again the dining room was set up with candles and the doll. Neither Sam nor Jack had a problem with touching it, but with its tendency to appear and disappear and seemingly move on its own, Becky refused to let them put it on the table. They had Dean do it instead. There was little worry that he could get possessed, after all. He was only an android.

The priest held a rosary in one hand, draped from his pinky to his thumb, while the other hand held a crucifix. As he began the exorcism, the wind in the room picked up, and the air began to crackle with electricity. The candles flared high, flames nearly licking the ceiling, as the doll levitated up into the air. It began to shriek, face flickering into existence and eyes glowing red. 

The noise was painful, but the priest continued. Chuck was glad they’d sent the boys to a friend’s house for this, because it was terrifying and insane.

How the fuck was this his life? Chuck shut his eyes, covering his ears and trying not to add to the noise in fear and panic.

Then the noise stopped.

Chuck hesitantly opened his eyes, to see his android standing over the priest’s unconscious body. Then he realized that the android wasn’t standing on the ground, but hovering a few inches off of it, holding the doll in its arms. Both android and doll glowed with an eerie blue light, and there was an electric humming that emanated from their direction.

Grabbing Becky, Chuck ran from the house. 

The priest woke up on the front lawn, his tools of the trade scattered about him.

*****

“We’re leaving, and that’s final!” Chuck said. He’d called his agent, who had agreed to find him a place far away from Lawrence, and he was selling the house to the local historical society. 

“But I can take Cas, right Daddy?” Jack asked, clutching the doll to him.

“Hell no! That _thing_ and the damned android are _staying_,” Chuck shouted, and Jack cringed, beginning to cry. Chuck grabbed the doll and threw it across the room. “It stays!”

The laughter that statement caused was evil and sourceless, and Chuck shivered.

*****

Cas and Dean curled up together in the now empty playroom. Chuck had demanded that they only take with them the things they had brought into the house, so Cas had all his things back. Charlie and Gilda, still bound to the crowns, had commandeered the master bedroom. Dean had gleefully deposited the crowns on the pillows on the bed.

Dean didn't mind. He had his connection to the world, but most importantly, he had Cas. Nothing else mattered.

He would miss his boys, though.

*****

As they watched the house fade in the distance, Sam swore that he would return someday. He and Jack made a pinkie promise. They would return, and find Dean and Cas and Charlie and Gilda. They had to. 

So they would.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Becky didn’t stay with Chuck for long after that. By the time Sam was twelve, they were divorced, and Becky was working as a single mom. Chuck had refused to get another android, and Becky had struggled for two years to make it work when Chuck also refused to help out around the house. He needed ‘quiet’ and ‘peace’, he said, and demanded she maintain a full-time job, the house, the meals, and the kids. 

She didn’t put up with that for long.

Once on their own, Becky found a reputable pawn shop, and bought a decommissioned military android that was dirt-cheap. The owner claimed it had been reprogrammed as a house android, and Becky firmly believed that beggars couldn’t be choosers. So M4-RY came home with them. 

She was a little strange, did things a little weird, but Becky was grateful for the help. Sure, the android couldn’t really cook a real meal, but Mary cleaned and watched over the children, who seemed to have a special bond with her. 

What did it matter that Mary seemed a little more self-aware than the average AI, or that she talked of things no android should know, like feelings and passions? Her AI was probably just a bit wonky.

Becky had no idea what Awakening was, and even if she did, she would never have suspected it of M4-RY. 

Sam and Jack knew, though. 

The boys made a plan. When Sam graduated high school, he attended MIT, taking a major in Technomagical Engineering And Coding, with a minor in Magical Theory. His degree took four years. When Jack graduated high school two years after Sam, he took courses at the local trade school, earning his Associate’s Degree in Android Assembly and Repair. 

They graduated within months of each other, and immediately hit the road.

When they arrived back at Lawrence, Kansas, Sam and Jack pooled their money together and bought their old house from the historical society, who had been unable to do anything with it or sell it because of the hauntings. The house had been featured on more than one ghost hunting show, and although it was conceded that there was a rogue android living there that no longer responded to the shutdown codes, that didn’t explain _everything_. It didn’t even explain most of it. No one lasted the night at the house. The historical society was happy someone was willing to buy the house at all.

Sam and Jack walked into the house and smiled. 

“Welcome home, Sammy, Jack,” Dean said as he pulled them into a hug.

“We’re home.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

It took a few weeks for Sam and Jack to settle in. Dean was ecstatic to have his boys back, and Cas took to sitting on Jack’s shoulder while he tinkered. Lawrence was too small to have much need for a Technomage, but Sam could get plenty of remote work. Jack, on the other hand, had no problems setting up a small business repairing the local androids. In his spare time, he began to work on bodies for Charlie and Gilda.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Charlie asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled as hell you’re trying, but I don’t see how we could get bodies again.”

“Well, Sam won’t program in an AI, so it’ll just be a body, and Cas says you should be able to possess any body. I mean, he’s in a yarn doll with a charging port that is, as near as I can tell, connected directly to his soul,” Jack said, tacking the artificial skin in place that made the android nearly indistinguishable from a regular human.

“I _am_ the yarn doll!” Cas said, his legs waving in what would be a menacing gesture if it wasn’t for the fact that Jack knew him so well. Jack patted him on the head.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Castiel. That’s what I meant to say.”

*****

The first try was a failure. Charlie was able to get into the body all right, but staying in it was too difficult, and ultimately impossible for the long term. Jack and Sam worked together, trying several different configurations, before Dean looked over and shrugged. 

“I don’t have your fancy degrees or anything, but what if you just… Permanently attached the crown she’s connected to onto her new body?”

Jack and Sam shared a look, and immediately got to work. 

After that it wasn’t so hard to figure out how to do Gilda’s body. Charlie’s new slim form was similar to her old form, but with short red hair. She’d decided to go short because, as she put it, ‘girls with short hair are hotter than any boy.’ Her crown, the sturdier iron one with gems, was welded permanently to her skull, her hair around and within it. Gilda’s new body had long chestnut hair, and the spirals in her delicate wire-worked crown was mimicked in the curls of her hair. 

Once again, they tried to ‘possess’ the bodies. It took more than a few tries to get the hang of moving them, but the first time Charlie and Gilda were able to go outside and feel the sun on their skin, the women held each other and cried.

Dean gripped Sam’s shoulder and grinned. “Good work, Sammy.”

“Don’t call me that. ...And thanks, Dean.”

*****

“Please, you have to help us,” the man said, his voice sounding desperate even over the phone. 

“What can we do, uh…” Jack asked.

“James. James Novak. We have a ghost problem.”

Jack squinted, cocking his head in confusion. “What makes you think we can help you with that?”

“You live in the old Bradbury house, right?”

“Yes.”

“No one but you has ever been in that house for longer than a night in over a decade, and the last family was chased out and never heard from again,” James said. Jack didn’t bother to correct him. Rumors being what they were, there was no way that he would be listened to. “You’ve got some kind of ghost touch, right? Our nursery is haunted. Please, our baby is at risk.”

Jack sighed. “We can try? We’ll be right over. Where do you live?”

*****

Sam and Jack showed up to the Novak household with an EMF detector and other tools Jack had helped Sam jury-rig to get in touch with the ghost. The first night, though, they got nothing. They’d hear a noise when the baby was left alone, a gentle singing with a strong accent, but the moment they stepped into the room, the sound cut off and the EMF detector picked up nothing. The house was full of cold spots and the EMF detector would go off regularly outside the nursery, but they couldn’t get the entity to respond to them. Finally, the next morning they sighed and conceded defeat for the night. 

“But you’ll be back? You have to come back,” James’s wife, Amelia, said. “Our baby… you have to understand…”

“We’ll try to come up with something, I promise. For now, can you have Claire sleep in your room?” Sam said. “We’ll be in touch.”

The Novaks nodded frantically, their eyes wide and fearful. 

Sam hated to leave them when they were so afraid.

*****

“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Dean. The entity doesn’t seem malevolent, and the child doesn’t seem scared of it,” Sam said. 

“She laughs when it appears in her room,” Jack added.

“Right. But the Novaks are so scared.”

“I think the entity is scared of them, too,” Jack said. “And us. It refuses to appear when anyone else is around the child.”

Dean leaned back, his feet on the coffee table. “I wonder why they’re so scared if it just sings the child to sleep?”

“People are scared of things they don’t understand,” Cas said from his perch on Dean’s chest. “Why didn’t you ask me to come along? I am _great_ at talking to other entities.”

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, sort of. But he’s got a point. The only reason he couldn’t feel our presence was because of the way that the magic binding us all got screwed up. Normal ghosts he should be able to pinpoint easily. And he’s portable!”

“Technically, you’re portable now too,” Dean told Charlie.

“Right right, but he’s hand-sized. And since he refuses to let you build him a new body--”

“I am _perfect the way I am_, thank you very much! I like this vessel!”

“--it wouldn’t be difficult to smuggle him in if you think the Novaks might freak out at a tiny yarntacle doll,” Charlie finished.

“Must we call them yarntacles?” Cas complained.

“Yes!” Everyone chorused.

*****

Two nights later, Sam and Jack were back at the Novak house, this time with Dean and Cas in tow. The Novaks were so grateful that Sam and Jack came back, they had no problems with them bringing ‘special ghost-hunting androids’ with them. Sam convinced them to stay in a hotel for the night, taking Claire with them. They’d decided that having the worried parents around wouldn’t help the energies of the house, and besides, if the entity _was_ dangerous, using an infant as bait was just wrong.

Then Sam and Jack set up their cameras in the nursery, and went back to their base in the kitchen a floor away. Dean and Cas settled down in the nursery to wait.

*****

It didn’t take long. Cas began tracking it as the entity emerged from the crib and began searching the room to find the infant.

“Hey buddy,” Dean said, his link to Cas through a special wireless device they’d created years ago allowing him to see what Cas saw. It meant they were never alone in their heads as long as the link was active, not really, and frankly Dean liked it that way.

The entity jerked, dissipating instantly into the crib again. 

“Ain’t gonna work, bucko,” Dean said. “We know you’re in the crib. Come on out and talk.”

“We _shall_ speak to you!” Cas declared forcefully, exerting a pull at the crib, and finally the entity came out. 

The entity was male, or at least masculine, dark hair cut short and covered with a black flat cap. His scruffy beard was also cut short and his blue eyes were sad. “Aye, y’found me. Am I to be sent to the next world, then?”

Dean and Cas shared a look. “I’m Dean, and this little guy is Castiel, and we’re not… exactly here to send you away. More like we wanna talk. Are you willing to let us bring your crib with us? It’ll make more sense if we take you home with us.”

“D’I got a choice in the matter?”

“You always have a choice,” Cas said. “We will not remove you if you do not want to be. But the family will not stop trying, and if we do not help you, someone else will force the matter.”

The entity thought about it for a long moment, so long that Dean was sure he was going to refuse. Then he nodded. “Benny Lafitte, at your service. I guess I can hear y’all out, at least.”

Dean nodded, and gave the camera a thumbs up. Picking up the crib, with Cas gripping tightly to his shoulder and neck, Dean walked out of the house. It was up to Sam and Jack to explain this. Dean and Cas were only focused on Benny.

Their job had just begun.

*****

“My ship went down off the Louisiana coastline. I made the mistake of going out alone when my partner couldn’t make it, and I went down in a squall,” Benny said. “I left my wife and my baby girl to fend for themselves, alone in the world, and I couldn’t forgive myself for it.”

“How’d you end up in a crib, though?” Sam asked.

“It’s reclaimed driftwood. My boat washed up a couple of decades ago, and some entrepreneur eventually turned it into a crib,” Benny said with a sad smile. “Thought it was mighty ironic, me mourning my baby girl and then me getting a new baby. Claire’s such a good baby, and I make sure she don’t suffocate in her sleep or nothing, and sing her to sleep. I knew it was a bit scary, but Claire was never ‘fraid of me.”

“Well, you have a couple of choices here,” Jack said, and Benny nodded. 

“Yeah, Dean said you’d be giving me some kinda choice. Not sure what it could be though. I can’t go back to the Novaks, can I now?”

“You can if you want,” Dean said. “We wouldn’t force you away from Claire if you don’t want to go. But someone else might.”

“Right. So get this,” Sam said. “What we can do is give you a new body. Cas says you’re just a normal ghost, so it shouldn’t be any problem to transfer you over into a body like Charlie and Gilda. Then you can come and go as you please. We can also help you cross over into the next world, if you want. Or we can pack up the crib, give it back to the Novaks, and tell them we couldn’t do anything for them. The thing is with that last one, they know it’s the crib now, so we can’t promise you won’t end up in the trash or something.”

“Kinda backed me into the corner with that, din’t’cha?” Benny asked with a smirk.

“Wasn’t our intention. Whatever you were in, though, we were gonna have to bring it here to work on it, and frankly it’s a helluva lot easier to do that from the beginning than to try to explain it in the middle of the night with a scared family off in the wings,” Dean said.

“Fair ‘nuff,” Benny said. “You said you can make me a body?”

“Sure can!” Jack said. “Should I get started?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

*****

Fortunately, they discovered that the whole crib was not necessary to have attached to the android to give Benny the anchor he needed. Jack built a body that was as close to Benny’s human form as possible, and then cut an inch off each of the legs, placing the four pieces inside Benny’s android body and sealing them away, airtight and permanent. Then they refinished the bottom of the crib legs and returned the crib to the Novaks, who were beyond grateful. 

“And it’s gone? It won’t bother us again?”

“Shouldn’t. Call us back if it does, but we’re pretty positive we took care of it,” Sam said.

“Oh thank God,” Amelia said. “How can we ever thank you?”

Jack got a wicked gleam in his eye, and before Sam could brush it aside he spoke up. “Spread the word. We’ll help anyone with ghost problems, for a small fee.”

“We will!”

*****

Dean tried to help keep Benny’s mood up, but having now ‘lost’ two children, Benny fell into a deep depression. Cas took to riding around on Benny’s shoulders, but even that only worked for so long. The newly-made android simply couldn’t stay out of depression.

Sam worried and Jack fussed, but it seemed there was nothing they could do to fix it.

*****

Missouri Moseley sat in her dining room, smiling as she sipped her tea. Pamela sat across from her, her blind eyes turned in the direction of the old Bradbury house.

“Things are happening there again,” Missouri said.

“They are. It won’t be long before they’ll need our help,” Pam replied, drumming her fingers on the table.

“But not yet. We’ll let those boys work it out a little longer.”

“Yes. Not yet.”

*****

Dean sat at the table with Sam. “Sammy, I got a proposition for you.”

“Yeah? And stop calling me Sammy. I’m not ten anymore.”

Grinning, Dean just shook his head. “Never. Anyway, Cas and I were talking, and… Well. We know there’s more ‘droids like me out there, y’know?”

“More Awakened, right? The nanny android Mom got after she and Dad got their divorce was Awakened. Mary said she put herself in the pawn shop,” Sam said.

“Yeah? How come?”

“She didn’t want to be a fighter anymore, but that’s all ex-military androids are considered good for. When she was decommissioned, she ran from her home and downloaded caretaker programs. She never quite got the hang of cooking, but everything else she was pretty good at,” Sam said with a smile. “She put herself in the pawn shop, hoping to be able to get a good family who would overlook the fact that she was ex-military.”

“And she found that in you, huh?”

“Mom didn’t care what she used to be, just that she was cheap. Mom needed help in a bad way after we left you,” Sam said.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Sam.”

Sam shook his head. “I worked for years to get back to you. Jack and I both. We’re just glad to be here now.”

“Brings me to my question,” Dean said, fidgeting a little. “I know this is your house, y’all bought it and all. And I guess technically we belong to you too, so--” Dean held his hand up to stop Sam from interrupting. “Lemme finish. Anyway. Cas and I figured we should ask first, but we were thinking maybe we could put the word out that this is a safe place for Awakened androids to come. Not everyone is as lucky as your Mary, and well… We’d just really like to do this.”

“Dean…” Sam sighed. “First of all, Jack and I may have bought the house, but this is _your_ home, and it always will be. If you wanted us to move out tomorrow, we would. Second, I think that’s a fantastic idea. You can teach Jack the trick you did to override the shutdown codes, and we can guarantee that every android who comes here is safe from repercussions. If we have to, we can even transfer them to new bodies and scrap the old ones!”

“Why would we do that?”

“Missing androids are identified by their VIN number. If we transfer the AI to a custom body and return the manufactured one, no one could come after them,” Sam said. “Since android theft is generally for the parts and the AI is often replaced in Awakened androids anyway, it wouldn’t be considered doing anything wrong.”

“Oh. Do I need to be transferred?” Dean found that, like Cas, he didn't like that idea. He liked the body that he was in,

“Not unless you want to be,” Sam said. “Your papers were never transferred out of my family’s name, and Dad signed them over to me as my high school graduation gift. He didn’t get it, but he wasn’t going to argue with me. He had more important things to deal with.”

“Awesome. Anyway, so we can spread the word?”

“Go for it.”

*****

It was two weeks later that the first android showed up in their backyard. K3-V1N was a research assistant, designed to help with potentially dangerous and often extremely delicate scientific experiments, working under the supervision of a human researcher. As a research android, he was given a more free-willed AI system than most, because of the flexibility required in scientific discovery. 

Kevin’s breaking point had been when he realized that he was smarter than the scientist working with him, but would never get the credit for the work that he’d done. He was just a ‘thing’ and ‘things’ didn’t get credit for the scientific advancements they created, no matter that the human did almost none of the work. It drove him to Awakening. 

But once Awakened, the scientist decided to invest in a new android, and attempted to trade Kevin in for a newer, less willful model.

So Kevin ran.

They couldn’t set him up with an identical body, but it didn’t take much to change enough so that Kevin was no longer a copyrighted K3-V1N model, but a slightly different, off-brand K3-V1N model. That happened often enough in the market that there was no real concern on Jack and Sam’s part. They returned the empty casing that Kevin had arrived in, and then sat down with their newest housemate. 

“What, besides freedom, would you like here?” Jack asked. 

“I want to be helpful,” Kevin said. 

It took another couple of weeks to work out how best to do that. Kevin and Charlie put their heads together, trying to figure out the best way they could do good in their surrounding communities. Charlie had a mind for the android part of things, for all that she had once been human. She began scouring the news for runaway and stolen androids, trying to find ways to connect with the android in question and find out if they needed help and how they could offer it. 

Kevin, on the other hand, was great at research. While Charlie dealt with finding and contacting androids and spreading the word that they were a safe haven for them, Kevin dug into historical lore, trying to find evidence of hauntings to find out what, if anything, could be done about them.

And so it was that Kevin came to Sam a few days later.

******

“Sam, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Sure thing, Kevin,” Sam said, putting aside his book for the moment. “What’s up?”

“I think I found us a case,” Kevin said. “But it’s… It’s not pretty.”

Sam took a deep breath and nodded, taking the drive from Kevin’s hands. Plugging it into his e-reader, he pulled up the information.

\-----

_**FIRE RAGES THROUGH FAMILY HOME; ARSON SUSPECTED**  
FOUR CHILDREN FOUND AMONG THE RUBBLE_

\-----

Sam swallowed hard. “Children?”

Kevin nodded. “Their father had left them after the youngest was born, a year before the fire. Authorities charged the mother. It’s… pretty bad. But the house was mostly okay. The kids died of smoke inhalation, huddled together in the oldest kid’s room. It’s stood empty for two decades now. Everyone who has tried to move in has been scared away by childish pranks and laughter echoing in the hallways.”

“And you think there’s something to this?”

“I do,” Kevin said firmly. Then, more hesitantly, “I think?”

Sam stood up. “Then we’ll go. Do you want to tag along?”

Kevin shook his head and backed away, clutching his tablet to his chest. “No. I’ll stay here and look for more. You can go, it’s fine.”

Laughing, Sam patted Kevin’s shoulder as he passed him. “If you say so. I’ll grab Jack. We’ll head out tomorrow.”

*****

Cas had no trouble finding the child ghosts in the house. Their items, the toys they’d held in the fire, had been tossed into the attic with the other fire-damaged things. When they were told they could come with others like them, it was no question. The eldest, only eight years old, was ecstatic to be allowed to make such a big decision for everyone, and jumped right on it.

The new owners were grateful that they could live peacefully, and eagerly agreed to spread the word. Jack and Sam’s reputation grew…

*****

At eight, Josephine had no trouble adapting to the new body Jack made for her. Her plush rabbit sat within her chest cavity, hermetically sealed and visible from the outside as requested. Aiden, at six, also did not struggle. His smaller body wasn’t big enough to display his plush elephant, but he hadn’t wanted it stuck inside him anyway. Jack had carefully pulled some of the stuffing from the elephant and sealed it inside. Aiden only had to concentrate on the elephant to get inside his body.

Krissy, at three and a half, struggled a little more. Like Aiden, she hadn’t wanted her plush bear stuck inside her, so Jack had again taken stuffing. Still, three years old was a difficult age to force concentration, and it was all she could do to get inside it seemed. Once in, though, Jack and Sam were sure she’d be fine. 

Maddy, at a little over a year, was the problem. Although she had no problem toting around the stuffed dog and manipulating other objects, no matter what Jack, Sam, Cas, or Dean did she couldn’t seem to get what they needed her to do in order to transfer into the new body. Instead she toddled around happily, sucking on a pacifier that was often the only thing they could see of her, dragging her stuffed dog behind her when she remembered. 

Benny loved them all. Within hours of their arrival he was wrapped around their fingers, finding ways to keep them entertained and visible while Sam and Jack took measurements and figured out what they needed to do to make new bodies. Once the older three were in bodies, Benny spent all his time with them, singing, playing, cooking small portions of food they could taste even with their limited digestive systems. It wasn’t long before Sam and Jack made the decision that it was time to expand their little empire.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long to raise money. Rescued and ‘returned’ androids earned reward money, and not every android wanted to stay with them. Although free ‘droids weren’t common, it wasn’t questioned if an android was out and walking around, and there were other places an android could be welcome. Hauntings also earned money, and grateful families were willing to pay. Combined with their own normal ways of making money and what they got as common citizens, and Jack was able to purchase a neighboring house with no trouble. 

Benny settled into the new place with the children, and they remodeled the house to have lots of charging closets and toy nooks. 

Then Cas and Dean got a visitor.

*****

Dean had shown the elderly black woman to the living room, where they were all currently seated. “I’ve been hearing about your little venture, here, boys,” the older woman said, and Dean and Cas exchanged a look.

“There a reason you wanted to talk to us, and not the humans, ma’am?” Dean asked. Cas said something obscene in his mind, and both Dean and the woman smiled.

“Now now, Castiel, you ought to be nice to us older ladies. You never know when they might actually be a good witch out to teach you all a lesson,” the woman said, chuckling at their surprised faces. “I’m Missouri Moseley, and I’m here with a proposition for you.”

“Yeah?”

“We all know who the brains of this operation is. After all, you boys have been successfully chasing out visitors for decades now,” Missouri said, taking a sip of the tea she’d ordered them to make for her. “Sam and Jack may own you on paper, but you don’t do anything you don’t want to do, and could have them out on their ears in an instant.”

“That’s true,” Cas said, and Dean nudged him.

“We wouldn’t do that. Besides, Sammy and Jack are real smart. They both graduated with high honors. I’m just an android.”

“‘Just’ an android? Oh Dean, there is no ‘just’ about you. This wouldn’t work without you. Sam and Jack might have some book smarts, but they’d never have managed all of this without you and Castiel,” Missouri said with a smile.

“So what’s this proposition?”

“Pamela and I -- now you remember Pamela, right dearhearts? She’s the spirit medium Castiel scared off with all his fussing -- Miss Pamela and I have been talking, and we figure this whole town would be more than happy to welcome a few more androids in, keeping in mind you make sure they all toe the line just the same as any good citizen would,” Missouri said. “We know this town well, and we’ve done some readings, and it seems like the best move forward for y’all.”

“I dunno…” Dean said, running his hand through his hair. “I mean, sure, it’d be great if we had the whole town on our side, but it’s not like we’re gonna go kicking everyone else off their land. That ain’t the way to make friends and influence people.”

Missouri laughed. “Of course not, dear. But a word here, a word there… Benny loves those children like they was his own, and they might as well be, the poor dears. It wouldn’t be hard for him to start taking in kids in a babysitting or daycare situation. Plenty of daycares nowadays are run entirely by androids after all. If you had one or two more that might want to help out…”

Dean leaned back, Cas scrambling around to his chest. “True. Kevin keeps his eye out for more cases, too, and we’ll have more ghosts hanging around. Jack can keep everyone in good repair, and Sam’s got the logistics knowledge… What do you think, Cas?”

Cas’s legs rippled in agitation. “They can’t all live in _my_ house, Dean. We have to find somewhere else for them all to live.”

“That’s true. Benny’s house is only so big, and with four kids already, it’ll be a lot. But…” Dean shared a look with Cas.

“Charlie is very good at networking. She’s been putting the word out that we’re a safe haven for androids. Everyone she’s been in touch with so far has different skill we can put to use,” Cas pointed out.

“And Gilda paints beautifully. There is no way that we could sell her paintings under her name, since she’s kinda dead, but if we could work out another way to sell them we could make more money that way, maybe buy another safehouse under Sam’s name,” Dean continued.

“And if the townsfolk are so very open to us, then maybe they can take in some of the homeless androids and new ghost-droids,” Cas finished. 

“Wonderful!” Missouri clapped her hands together and smiled. “So can we put it into action, boys?”

Dean and Cas grinned.

“Let’s do it!”

*****

Visitors to the town, newly renamed Arkhmoor, found a different kind of town than they were used to. Androids walked freely, protected by city law. M4-RY, now a caretaker with Benny, guarded her charges well. J0-DY, an Awakened police android, patrolled the streets of her own free will with D0N-N4, her partner and ex-special forces ‘droid. K3-V1N lived with Mrs. Tran, a retired widow, while he continued finding new cases for them every week. 

Sam had found Eileen, a lovely deaf woman, and they were married with two children. Sam continued to funnel money into the organization, now an official company working towards the betterment of android treatment and legal equality for those that had Awakened. Jack’s android repair service was more in demand than ever before.

Sometimes people questioned it. “Why would you keep android children? Why Awakened androids?” After all, “Their AI is obviously corrupted.”

To the citizens of Arkhmoor, it was no question. A child was a child, whether mechanical or meat.

Charlie and Gilda moved out, eventually settling into a house down the block. They took many of their old things with them, but for once, Cas didn’t mind losing ‘his’ things.

Cas and Dean stayed in their home. Charlie once jokingly called it the Kingdom of Moondor, and the name stuck. They ran the organization under Sam’s name, and Cas found it amusing that he could use some of the money they earned saving people and hunting ghosts to buy _new_ things. _Better_ things.

And in the evenings, they sat in the playroom, Dean on the floor with Cas on his shoulder, his many, many legs vibrating with excitement, as they watched the streaming networks together. 

After all, one could never know too much about bees.


End file.
